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The Trip To Bountiful Is Now A Comment On Racism

March 12, 2013

Horton Foote‘s emotional The Trip To Bountiful–about a widow’s yearning to revisit her beloved Bountiful, Texas–began as a TV movie, then it was a Broadway play, then a 1985 movie (which won Geraldine Page a deserved Oscar), and now it’s back on Broadway, with Cicely Tyson in the lead role.

Trip has had quite a trip–and Tom Wopat, who plays the sheriff, just told me what added texture the new casting brings.

“When you look at the political situation in Texas–with immigration–the racial implications of all that are huge.”

I bet if Holland Taylor dropped by this show as Ann Richards, she’d vehemently agree.

Wopat said he normally doesn’t care for smaller roles “because I like to be busy, but this is a part that’s critical to where she wants to go. I’m the enabler. I get her to her goal.” And besides, he said he had a good experience with an all-star production of Glengarry Glen Ross a few years ago, so he liked the idea of this production’s cast.

The ensemble not only features Tyson and Wopat, it also stars Vanessa Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr. (from Boat Trip to Bountiful), and Tony nominee Condola Rashad.

‘The World Trade Center was conceived by vested interests, promoted by pressure groups, brought into being by a handful of powerful men for reasons of monetary gain or personal pressure, and indirectly subsidized by the taxpayer’